Serious Sam II review (Xbox)

Serious Sam II doesn't do much with the original game's formula, but it introduces some vehicle-driving and turret-gun sequences into the mix. These aren't anything you haven't seen in numerous other shooters prior to this one, but they help alleviate Serious Sam II from what's a very monotonous level design overall. While the worlds you'll visit have their own unique visual style and enemies, the underlying level design and enemy behavior doesn't change much from one level to the next, and the game's challenge doesn't really escalate all that much either. In fact, at the default difficulty, most of the game is fairly easy, though certain end-of-level sequences will probably take you a few tries, at least until you figure out where all the enemies are coming from. Many of the game's levels end with an anticlimax. You battle waves and waves of foes until they simply stop coming, and then the level ends. Some decent boss fights are thrown in, but it's all been downhill for Serious Sam's boss fights since the jaw-dropping battle at the end of the first game. All the game's levels are bookended by little comedic cutscenes, some of which are absurdly amusing. However, just as often the humor falls flat. The same can be said for Sam's various one-liners during the course of the gameplay. Later on in the game, Sam even starts recycling his material, as if you needed to be reminded of such gems as "I eat resistance for breakfast."

The differences between the PC and Xbox versions of Serious Sam II may seem purely cosmetic, but they add up to a lot in practice. Specifically, the Xbox version looks worse, and the auto-aim feature that's enabled by default to compensate for having to use a gamepad instead of a mouse and keyboard sucks away some of the game's challenge. The auto-aim feature makes it laughably easy to hit your mark, though it's necessary in the many instances when you're shooting at targets from very far away, where the Xbox version's low resolution and sketchy frame rate conspire to make it difficult to line up your shots. Also, the PC version supports online cooperative gameplay for up to 16 players, while the Xbox limits you to four (though we had a lot of problems getting into a stable co-op match on the PC). The Xbox version also retails for more than the PC version, neither of which, incidentally, is coming out of the gate for the budget price of the original. So, yeah, don't spring for the Xbox version unless you haven't upgraded your PC since the first Serious Sam.

On a nicely equipped PC, Serious Sam II does look great. It's now got a physics engine like pretty much every other shooter, so expect to see some boxes flipping around from explosions, and that kind of stuff. Some aspects of the game's environments blow up good, and there's another neat effect in how trees shake wildly, shedding their leaves from the violent impact of nearby blasts. The levels look pretty, though the designs aren't very imaginative, for the most part (a giant-sized level filled with giant-sized stomped-out cigarette butts stands out), and the enemies look purposely absurd. The game's grainy cutscenes seem like they could have easily been rendered in real time using the game's engines, but they probably weren't to cut back on loading times, which aren't bad. As for the audio in Serious Sam II, it tries too hard to be silly. Some of it's great. Sam's guns are plenty loud, and his gruff voice is perfect for a generic action hero. But the nonstop babble of the occasional friendly villagers you'll run into, as well as some other specific sounds (like a gratingly unfunny voice that announces when you've earned an extra life, which is often), can be annoying. The music matches the game's lighthearted theme well but picks up tempo and drops off abruptly whenever enemies appear.

A cooperative mode is the only multiplayer option available in Serious Sam II, and while games like this can certainly be more fun if you play them with friends, the co-op mode doesn't do anything to fix Serious Sam II's shortcomings. Fans of Serious Sam will enjoy some aspects of being in Sam's red sneakers again, and the game's goofy humor and corny references to other first-person shooters do give this game a distinct personality. But while the action will keep you on edge, it rarely achieves the sort of teeth-grinding, fist-clenching intensity that you'd expect if you played the original Serious Sam games or are otherwise looking for a totally satisfying no-nonsense shooter.